Give her hell from us, Peeves!
by Possum132
Summary: A meandering little story of what Dolores Umbridge, Filius Flitwick and Severus Snape were thinking and doing when Fred and George decided that they'd outgrown fulltime education. Warning ... evil Hufflepuff!
1. Chapter 1: Dolores Umbridge

**Give her hell from us, Peeves!**

_This vignette isn't part of the seven part series that starts with "Why Snape never eats here" – it's just a meandering little story about what Umbridge, Flitwick and Snape were thinking at that marvelous moment when Fred and George Weasley decided that they'd outgrown full-time education. However, if you read the series you will get a better feel for the particular version of the Potterverse in which the story is set._

**Chapter 1: Dolores Umbridge**

She's brooding over her class of fifth year Gryffindors, they've got their heads down, bent over Chapter Thirty-Four of _Defensive Magical Theory_, even Harry-bloody-Potter is keeping quiet. She thinks, Potter has finally learned his lesson and he doesn't want another detention with _me_, no, he doesn't want another detention with the Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was so thoughtful of Lucius Malfoy to provide me with that Detention Quill, it's an antique, a very valuable family heirloom - and young Draco and his friends have been very helpful, too. The Malfoys are such a distinguished, wealthy, generous family ... and Lucius warned me about Potter, what a nasty, lying little troublemaker Potter is, and I've seen it for myself, Dumbledore's Golden Boy is almost uncontrollable. But Dumbledore always favoured Potter's father - Lucius told me that James Potter could get away with murder when he was a student at Hogwarts - and now he favours the son, he favours all the Gryffindors, from what I've heard. And McGonagall is just as bad, encouraging Potter to imagine that he might be offered a Ministry position ... I don't think so! Only those of proven loyalty to the Ministry are accepted into the Auror Corps, and Potter is Dumbledore's creature, through and through.

Dumbledore! Oh, most people are taken in by that dotty old man act that Dumbledore puts on - but not _me_. He's devious, manipulative, power-hungry ... when Cornelius was first made Minister, Dumbledore bombarded him with owls - he _loved_ being the power behind the throne, pulling the strings - but now that Cornelius refuses to be his puppet any longer, he's making an open grab for power. The defeat of Grindelwald is old hat now, so he's hitched his wagon to Harry Potter's star, trying to beat up hysteria about You Know Who to destabilise the Ministry, to frighten people into wanting a change of regime, into wanting a firm hand on the rudder – the hand of the only wizard You Know Who supposedly ever feared! And we have to keep the situation under control, people were close to panic when those Death Eaters escaped from Azkaban, and the last thing we need is more nonsense about You Know Who having returned, the last thing we need is more rubbish in the press about the Boy Who Lived.

She looks loathingly at Potter, just look at him, always flicking his hair back so you can see the scar on his forehead, I'd like to take a pair of scissors to that hair but what's the point, hair like that has its own magic, it would just grow back again overnight. Potter deludes himself that he's special, important - just because he's got a scar on his forehead, just because of some laughable prophecy by that alcoholic fraud, Sybill Trelawney. And clearly he believes that there is no such thing as bad publicity... he knew the _Daily Prophet_ wouldn't publish his ramblings so he went to _The Quibbler_. That _rag!_ And the editor, Lovegood, is simply deranged - he has no sense of public responsibility, no sense for the kind of story he should run past the Ministry before he rushes it into print. Nevermind, I have my eye on the daughter, "Loony" Lovegood they call her, and I've docked Ravenclaw quite a few points on her account, I don't imagine she's very popular with her House mates now - that'll teach her father to publish a fantastic tissue of lies with just enough truth in it for idiots to give it some credence ...

Bertha Jorkins did disappear in Albania, but there was nothing peculiar about _that_, Jorkins was a true Gryffindor because she definitely had more guts than brains - Albania is a dangerous place for a holiday, the Ministry is always having to rescue imbeciles who go wandering around there, clutching a copy of _Voyages with Vampires_ and looking for "adventure". And Bartemius Crouch was certainly behaving very oddly last year, it must have been the strain of knowing that his Death Eater son had escaped from his house. Crouch hid his son all those years ... and to think he once had aspirations to be the Minister for Magic! No loyalty to the Ministry at all, he deserved what he got, murdered by his own son, a raving lunatic who believed that he was acting on his master's orders, yes, there's a smidgeon of truth in that part of the story. How Cedric Diggory died is still a little unclear, but Cornelius thinks that Karkaroff was behind it - not that we want _that_ to come out, it's best if the public believe it was a tragic accident - Karkaroff probably only intended to stun Diggory to ensure that Durmstrang won the Tournament, but Karkaroff was a Death Eater, he got a bit carried away and he killed Diggory, and when he realised what he'd done, he bolted. He's probably hiding out now with Sirius Black, the Lestranges and the other Death Eaters who escaped from Azkaban.

Yes, Potter's story is the most ridiculous, the most ludicrous pile of steaming dragon dung _The Quibbler_ has ever published – and that is really saying something! As if You Know Who, if he had servants like Sirius Black and Barty Crouch at his command, would have wasted a whole year on some convoluted scheme to kidnap Harry Potter, using the Tri-Wizard Cup as a Portkey, when they could have so easily snatched Potter from an outing to Hogsmeade, with a great deal less fuss and bother. _Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken_ ... what nonsense! And it had to be Potter's blood of course, nothing else would do – in Potter's grandiose fantasies! And his story of duelling with You Know Who, actually _duelling_ with him ... Merlin's beard, who could believe _that_, if You Know Who had really regained a body, if he had really summoned his Death Eaters, he wouldn't have taken any risks, he wouldn't have wasted any time – he would have ordered his Death Eaters to kill Potter. And it is hardly imaginable that they would have failed ... a dozen Dark wizards against one under-age boy, even if he has a lighting-shaped scar on his forehead, even if he is a Gryffindor!

And then she thinks of an idea that she's had for a while, an outrageous idea, so outrageous that she hardly dares to suggest it to Cornelius. Dumbledore threatened open insurrection against the Ministry – but he's hardly going to take on the Aurors with a handful of teenagers, no, he must have more powerful allies. She remembers the night that Dumbledore was driven out of Hogwarts - they'd thought to catch a minnow and they'd landed a pike - Dumbledore had boasted that he could break out of Azkaban ... could Dumbledore have had a hand in the escape of the Death Eaters? And she is sure that Harry Potter was meeting Sirius Black in the Gryffindor Common Room fire in October ... Harry Potter and Sirius Black, the Boy Who Lived and the Death Eater who betrayed his parents to You Know Who! What business could they have together? Unless Dumbledore is in league with the Death Eaters, and has been in league with them for some time ... and there's some mystery about how Black escaped the year before last, when he was captured at Hogwarts - Cornelius told me that Snape was ranting something about Potter being involved, Cornelius thought it was nonsense at the time but now he's not so sure ... Snape said Black had Confunded the boy, persuaded him that Black was innocent of complicity in the murders of his parents, and what did it say in _The Quibbler_, something about Pettigrew being alive, something about him framing Black for the deaths of those Muggles? ... it's a web of mystery but Dumbledore will be somewhere at the bottom of it. And was it then that Dumbledore first made contact with Black, was it then that he recruited him, was it then that he got the idea of seizing power by force?

And where does Snape fit into the picture? He's another one of these damned Death Eaters, he spied for Dumbledore in the war against You Know Who, but he must hate Dumbledore now, after being passed over for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position so many times, he applied _again_ this year but Dumbledore wouldn't appoint him. Big mistake, Dumbledore, that's how the Ministry got its foot in the door here, and now I'm Headmistress! No, you _won't_ be coming back to Hogwarts, Dumbledore, and I'll soon be rid of Hagrid and McGonagall as well, how _dare_ she shout at me like that, for half the school to hear! That half-breed oaf Hagrid is useless, it will be easy to deal with him, unfortunately McGonagall is a competent teacher ... but I can promise you this, Dumbledore, Gryffindor will have a new Head of House next year, one of _our_ people, someone from the Ministry, someone I can trust. Percy Weasley is far too young to consider for the position, which is a pity – his family are perfectly dreadful, Muggle-lovers and troublemakers - but he works very hard to make up for it, and Cornelius is pleased with him ... that Muggle-born girlfriend of his, Penelope something, wasn't doing his career any good, I'm glad I spoke to him about that.

She thinks, oh yes, Hogwarts will shortly have a new Head of Gryffindor, and a new Head of Slytherin, too, I don't like Snape, the surly brute, and I don't trust him, either, he'd be quite capable of playing both ends against the middle. I doubt that he limits his ambition to the Defence position, he'll be hoping that if he plays his cards right, he'll be the next Headmaster, the first Slytherin Headmaster since Phineas Nigellus. He must have his eyes on the Headmaster's office, why else would he have stayed here for so many years? According to Lucius, he's one of only half a dozen wizards in Europe capable of brewing the Wolfsbane Potion - handy for Dumbledore, when he hired that werewolf - so why else would he stay here? The pay is pitiful, of course it doesn't matter to _me_, I'm still drawing a Senior Undersecretary's salary. And Lucius speaks very highly of him, they're old school friends, he's got a powerful patron in Lucius ... oh what a pity there turned out to be nothing in the story about Snape being a vampire! Flitwick was just making mischief, just wasting my time, when he told me that Snape spends his summers hanging upside down in the dungeons. I really thought I had Dumbledore then – hiring the Big Three of Dark creatures, a giant, a werewolf and a vampire ... Dumbledore got away with the giant and the werewolf but he would have found it difficult to explain bringing a vampire into a school full of young girls, _very_ difficult indeed - but Eldred Worple is the authority on vampires, and he told me that Snape isn't a vampire.

Misconduct with a student would be enough to get rid of him, but Warrington and Montague actually seemed quite shocked when I asked them about that, strange, they're Slytherins and seventh years so I would have expected them to be a little more worldly ... well, I had to ask, I have to satisfy myself that all of the staff are suitable, and Snape is the only wizard on the staff under sixty. I know what teenage girls are like, and he's not unattractive in a dark, brooding, gothic way - he'd have opportunities ... yes, it was very disappointing that line of inquiry turned out to be another dead end. Never mind, I've still got something I can use against Snape, Lucius can't know what's in Snape's Ministry file, it's confidential ... and Snape seems a bit sensitive about that, he didn't like it when I mentioned looking into teachers' backgrounds, no, he didn't like that at all, did he? Cornelius told me that he has a foul temper, and now I've seen it for myself ... yes, I'll string Snape along for the moment, I need him until the students sit for their examinations, but a copy of Snape's Ministry file circulated to the Board of Governors should do the trick, there are some very unpleasant things indeed in that file, one look at that file and I think Lucius Malfoy will be keen to distance himself from Severus Snape. Snape's students are quite surprisingly attached to him but they'll get over it, they're Slytherins, and Slytherins are pragmatic, sensible people - and they know which way the wind is blowing. Everyone knows that You Know Who was a Slytherin, everyone knows that most of his Death Eaters were Slytherins, and while there is any talk of You Know Who returning the Slytherins won't dare to be less than enthusiastic in showing support for the Ministry. The Ministry controls Hogwarts now, and the Slytherin students will all be good little boys and girls - mummy and daddy don't want a visit from Magical Law Enforcement, do they? I wonder where Snape lives when he's not at Hogwarts, perhaps I'll arrange for the Aurors to call in to see him, to have a little look around and see what they can find ... oh, that will teach him to show his temper to _me_, the nasty insolent bastard. And it won't be hard to replace him - I don't need a temperamental genius like Snape to teach basic potions to a bunch of kids, someone merely competent will do ...

The bell rings for the end of class, the Gryffindors scuttle out, and then she hears screams and yells reverberating from somewhere above her, sweet Merlin what is it _this_ time? She runs up to the fifth floor corridor, where the commotion is the loudest, to find that it's been turned into a quagmire. Students trapped in their classrooms, Filch is having hysterics, screaming, how do you expect me to clean this up with a _mop?_ Flitwick is just standing there at the other end of the corridor, being _helpful_, levitating students across the bog ... hell and damnation, what is Snape doing up here, why isn't he down in the dungeons where he belongs? And why doesn't Flitwick just wave his wand and get rid of the blasted swamp? Don't tell me that he can't - he's the Charms Professor and the Head of Ravenclaw! And then she remembers Marietta Edgecombe's spots, Madam Edgecombe is very upset and she is not without influence, and like hell Flitwick can't lift that charm ... she'd nearly choked with disbelief when Flitwick told her that he couldn't lift that charm! And what did he say about the fireworks? _I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn't sure whether or not I had the authority_. She thinks, and that's another one who'll be going, Flitwick will be out the door by the end of the year ... I'll find a way to sack him, it's suspicious how cheerful he is all the time, very suspicious, an addiction to Cheering Charms must be the explanation for _that_. An unhealthy dependency on mood-altering magic, that won't impress Cornelius - or the Board of Governors.

And Marietta Edgecombe's spots will be Miss Granger's work, _of course_ Potter and his little friends were involved in organising that meeting, and if we hadn't been in such a hurry to arrest Dumbledore I think we might have been able to wring some very damaging admissions out of Potter ... oh yes, they were involved, all right. It would have been Granger who enchanted the parchment – Potter and Weasley don't have the brains to think of something like that - yes, that will be the work of McGonagall's favourite, the insufferable bushy-haired know-it-all. It used to make me sick to listen to McGonagall singing the praises of that little cow in the staff room ... McGonagall thinks Hermione Granger will be the first Muggle-born Minister for Magic! Not if I can prevent it, I will _not_ allow the Ministry to be taken over by a nobody, a girl of no wizarding family ... and there's a scandal there, I'm certain of it, no Muggle-born could possibly have that much ability. Granger will be a half-blood, some wizard's bastard foisted on the Muggle husband - and it happens more often than you'd think, the way those shameless Muggle females flaunt themselves in short skirts and skimpy blouses.

But there's a silver lining to this cloud, Pansy Parkinson is telling her that Fred and George Weasley were _seen_ by members of the Inquisitorial Squad, there are half a dozen witnesses, Filch amongst them. This is sweet! The Weasley twins caught redhanded - when she's never been able to give them so much as a detention before, though she knows it was them who were responsible for the fireworks - and they've been trapped in the Entrance Hall. She thinks, this provocation is the final straw, I can do it now, Cornelius won't object when I tell him how they've provoked me. I cannot have chaos at Hogwarts, I cannot permit a lack of discipline, it would reflect badly on the Ministry. She turns to Filch, tells him that he has approval for whipping, he'll find the forms in her desk drawer, and heads down towards the Entrance Hall.

Students, teachers and ghosts are standing all around the walls in a great ring, some of them covered in what looks like Stinksap, the Weasley twins are standing in the middle of the floor with the unmistakeable look of two people who have just been cornered, and that blasted poltergeist, Peeves, is bobbing overhead.

She stands on the stairs, looking down on them, and she says, "So – you think it amusing to turn a school corridor into a swamp, do you?"

One of the twins – she can't tell them apart – replies, "Pretty amusing, yeah," and she thinks, you'll be laughing out of the other side of your faces soon, my lads, very soon ... just because you've got a modicum of talent you think that the rules don't apply to you, but you're about to find out that things have changed around here!

Filch is waving an Approval for Whipping form under her nose, almost crying with happiness, "I've got the form, Headmistress. I've got the form and I've got the whips waiting ... oh, let me do it now."

"Very good, Argus," she replies, thinking, Filch will be completely in my pocket after _this_ ... and a very useful ally he is, too, he may only be a miserable Squib but he knows all the secret passages and hidden corners of Hogwarts. And when their backs have been flayed into ribbons, these boys won't be so impudent, it will take more than a drop of Murtlap essence to salve their wounds after a good horsewhipping, oh this is going to be _very_ enjoyable, pity I can't use _crucio_ on them, but that would be going too far, I can't justify _crucio_ for anything less than a matter of Ministry security.

She continues, "You two are about to learn what happens to wrongdoers in my school," and she thinks, Hogwarts is my school now, _my_ school, and soon the teachers will be my staff, too, I'll be making a clean sweep of the senior staff positions - Sprout can stay, she's harmless - but I will be replacing the rest of them ... and I'm not a Gryffindor, there's no special treatment for Gryffindors any more, I'm a Hufflepuff, loyal to the Minister for Magic, loyal to the Ministry, and anyone who takes _me_ on is taking on the whole Ministry.

The Weasley boys don't seem to be as abashed and frightened as she expected them to be, they blurt out some defiant nonsense, and then raise their wands and shout "_Accio brooms!_", and to her amazement their broomsticks – which had been securely pegged to the wall of her office - come hurtling into the Entrance Hall and stop sharply in front of their owners. They mount their broomsticks and shout some more defiance, something about opening up a business in Diagon Alley ...

"STOP THEM," she shrieks, but the Inquisitorial Squad are too slow and the Weasleys kick off from the ground fifteen feet into the air, shout, "Give her hell from us, Peeves!", wheel around and speed out of the open front doors of the Entrance Hall. There's a tremendous uproar, and she stares after them, vowing to make life as difficult for them as possible ... she'll have a word with Dawlish and some of her other connections in Magical Law Enforcement, if those horrible little swine are caught handling any Non-Tradable Substances they'll regret it, yes they will, they'll _really_ regret it. And the Inquisitorial Squad will regret this, too, they'll regret being so useless and unreliable, they have wands, don't they - so why didn't they _do_ something?


	2. Chapter 2: Filius Fitwick

**Give her hell from us, Peeves!**

**Chapter 2: Filius Flitwick**

He's still in his classroom, his last class for the day finished at four o'clock but he's working up some finger exercises for his seventh years - their wand work is not as precise as he would like it to be, and it will certainly have to be better by the time that they take their NEWTs, and the best thing to do is to take them right back to the basics. He flicks open a spell book, closes it, and opens another, the charm that he's looking for is the simplest little thing but there are some excellent detailed diagrams of the wand movements that he wants to put up on the blackboard, and for the life of him he can't remember which book it's in. Then he finds what he's been hunting for – a neat little Severing Charm, it's only a household spell but it's just the trick to smarten up his final year students' wand work, you can peel a grape with this charm if your finger movements are sufficiently delicate and controlled – and with a wave of his wand and a couple of muttered words he copies the diagrams from the book to the blackboard. He thinks, I'll ask the house elves to put an apple on everyone's desk tomorrow morning – we'll start with peeling apples, the students always enjoy that – peeling the apple in a long spiral to see who can get the longest strip of peel, that's always fun, and when they've mastered that we can move on to something more challenging. They may have passed their OWLs but Griselda Marchbanks marks NEWTs to a much higher standard, after all, they're seventeen when they sit their NEWTs, they're adults and they have to be ready for the real world.

But when he thinks about the kind of world that his NEWT students are going to graduate into he sinks his head into his hands in despair, and he thinks - Firenze says that the war will start soon but you don't need to be a centaur to read the signs! Thank Merlin Luna's father was courageous enough to publish the truth about Cedric's death – Luna has been punished for it since, that horrible toad of a woman has used every excuse to dock points from Ravenclaw – and it was harrowing reading. Horrible, horrible, Pomona and I were in tears over it. _Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken_, that is Dark magic, the Darkest kind of magic, Harry was very lucky to escape from that monster, and very brave to bring back Cedric's body.

And now Voldemort's most vicious supporters have rejoined him, they just _walked_ out of Azkaban, and Fudge is being wilfully, _criminally_ blind to the truth. The Ministry hasn't behaved so stupidly since they ignored the rise of Grindelwald - he whipped the Muggles up to fight amongst themselves so ferociously that they tore Europe apart, but our Ministry of Magic didn't do anything because the Muggles weren't fighting in Britain ... it was Albus who finally stepped in and dealt with Grindelwald! The European Ministries haven't forgotten that, they haven't forgiven us for not helping them in their time of desperate need. They didn't help us in the last war against Voldemort and they won't help us in the next war. Perhaps a few foreign wizards will join Albus' Order of the Phoenix, but there will be no official help in the coming war.

And Fudge has done nothing to prepare for war! He actually wound back the Auror training program, just to save a few Galleons – it's unbelievable, but that there have been no new recruits into the Auror Corps in the past three years – and now he's foisted Umbridge on us. Fudge didn't send Umbridge here to _teach_, she's actively preventing the students from practicing their defensive spells! How are they to learn to defend themselves, when they are not being _taught_? No, Fudge didn't send Umbridge here to teach, he sent her here to keep an eye on Albus and to discredit Sybill Trelawney, and it is _wicked_ what she's done to Sybill. There have been rumours for years about a prophecy made to Albus concerning Harry and Voldemort, but a prophecy made by an alcoholic fraud isn't going to be taken seriously, is it? And Umbridge's persecution of Hagrid is _cruel_, I don't know where he would go if he was driven out of Hogwarts, and he has the gentlest, kindest nature.

He thinks, I really _don't_ like Dolores Umbridge, she's so vindictive and unpleasant, and cunning, too – getting the Slytherins to do her dirty work and Merlin knows the rest of the school doesn't need any more reasons to dislike them, particularly after Harry named the fathers of four of them as Death Eaters ... Severus is furious about the Inquisitorial Squad, but he daren't say anything, with his record he can't afford to show anything less than enthusiasm for Ministry policy, not without Albus here to protect him. And Umbridge is definitely looking for something to use against him, she looked like she'd swallowed a particularly juicy Dungfly when I told her about the vampire rumour, I've warned Severus to be careful around her ... we all have to be careful around her, oh why did Minerva have to fight with her this morning, half the school heard the shouting. Umbridge won't rest now until she's got rid of Minerva, and she'll find a way, she may not be much of a witch but you don't rise to the position of Senior Undersecretary unless you know how to get things done.

Oh yes, Umbridge is a sly one, she's a disgrace to Hufflepuff, and poor Pomona is so embarrassed by Umbridge's behaviour that she's hardly left her greenhouses since the inspections started. Well, there are bad apples in all of the Houses, and Umbridge is an example of Hufflepuff loyalty given to an unworthy object and taken to a ridiculous extreme - I shudder to think of the crimes that woman could justify in the name of "Ministry security". Not that there aren't quite a few Ravenclaws that I'm ashamed of, Fudge is one of us – and it was a very unpleasant shock to see Augustus Rookwood's face on the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. He was an Unspeakable, he worked in the Department of Mysteries, studying the nature of magic, why Squibs don't have it, and Muggle-borns do ... and I can guess at what Voldemort promised him - plenty of test subjects and no limits on what he could do to them, no limits to his vile experiments. But Rookwood wasn't alone, there were plenty of people who thought that Voldemort had the right idea about the Muggles and the Muggle-borns before they realised the lengths that he was prepared to go to in order to become Minister for Magic.

And there are still people in the Ministry who don't approve of giving Muggle-born children a magical education, and that makes me so angry. Merlin's beard, my wife was Muggle-born, and she was _brilliant _... and some of the cleverest, most talented students in my House are Muggle-born. They're sheltered from pureblood prejudice here at Hogwarts, I know the word "Mudblood" is thrown at them from time to time, and not always by the Slytherins, but _never_ in the hearing of a staff member, and it breaks my heart to see how they're treated sometimes after they leave school. Look at Penelope Clearwater, an astonishing performance to take ten OWLs after being Petrified for a month, a galaxy of NEWTs, she was Head Girl, and now she's an under-assistant to Mafalda Hopkirk in the Improper Use of Magic Office. What could I say to Penelope? Your family were all educated at Oxford and Cambridge, exceptionally intelligent people, but they are _Muggles_, and there are still witches and wizards who regard a Muggle as a kind of talking animal – and who haven't got the slightest idea of what a university is.

And I _know_ that Dolores Umbridge had a hand in the end of Penelope's relationship with Percy Weasley, I can just hear that ... that _evil toad _... telling him that a Muggle-born girlfriend won't help his career, he should find a nice pureblood girl ... or perhaps a half-blood, because a half-blood is a step up from a Muggle-born, at least a half-blood has one magical parent! Umbridge is dreadful, truly dreadful ... and it's absolutely awful what she's done to Hogwarts, the staff room is deserted, meal times are an agony – she listens to everything we say, and we've been reduced to whispering together in corners ...

He thinks, Albus, why didn't you appoint Severus to the Defence position, and spare us from Umbridge? She only got her foot in the door because you wouldn't appoint Severus! You tell us that you trust Severus but you won't appoint him to the Defence position - and do you know how much that hurts him? Severus will never believe that you've really forgiven him, that you really trust him, until you let him teach Defence. You won't appoint _him_, but you appointed a _werewolf_. And while Remus Lupin is a pleasant sort of fellow and his Lycanthropy was manageable when he was a student and under constant supervision, I would have been very anxious about having Lupin at Hogwarts if I hadn't known that Severus would be brewing his Wolfsbane Potion and watching him like a hawk. And Severus is more than competent, we all know _that_, of course I asked him for a second opinion about the Hurling Hex on Harry's Firebolt, I would never have let Harry have that broomstick back if Severus hadn't been sure that it wasn't jinxed.

And then he sighs and thinks, Harry and Severus, what a difficult situation! And broomsticks and Quidditch have a lot to do with Severus' hostility towards Harry. Quidditch! That wretched game stirs up House rivalry like nothing else at this school and even in my House – the House of _intellectuals_ – the Quidditch team are treated like gods, look at Cho Chang, she's a heroine because she can catch the Snitch, while Luna, who is so gifted that it's almost frightening, is "Loony" Lovegood. And Severus has been convinced that Albus favours Harry ever since Albus let Harry play Quidditch in first year, and he's jealous. Albus is always saying that Voldemort's weakness is that he doesn't understand love – but Albus' weakness is that he doesn't understand _hate_, he doesn't understand hatred and envy and jealousy, and he doesn't understand the misery it springs from. Albus treated Severus as his favourite for years – and then Harry arrives! Of course Severus behaved like a toddler when you bring the new baby home from St Mungo's, of course he sulked and raged when he thought that Harry was getting special treatment ... Albus doesn't mean to hurt him, but he _does_, and sometimes Minerva has all the sensitivity of a blunt axe. Couldn't she see how she was upsetting Severus, that day when she was enthusing in the staff room about Harry, _he's so much like his father, he looks just like James – with Lily's eyes – his first time on a broomstick and he caught Longbottom's Remembrall after a fifty foot dive! James would have been so proud of him ... If Albus will bend the first year rule so that Harry can play Seeker, Gryffindor will have a really competitive team this year. _Not that there was any point in spoiling Harry's pleasure in his new broom, what good would that have done - so I made a bit of a fuss about it when I saw Harry with it in the Entrance Hall.

But how could Minerva have forgotten how much James and Severus hated each other, how could she have forgotten how much the Gryffindor Quidditch champion and the little Slytherin oddball with the interest in the Dark Arts hated each other? I can still remember the warning that she gave me in my first staff meeting – it was the year that my wife died, Albus needed someone at short notice and I taught Defence for six months because I needed something to keep me busy – Minerva warned me that my OWL class of Gryffindors and Slytherins would be a handful, she warned me that Severus had a dreadful temper and that he'd feuded relentlessly with the Marauders since their very first week at Hogwarts. I expected an arrogant Slytherin prince and I was really surprised when I walked into the classroom for the first time and took the register - so this is the notorious Severus Snape, this shabby, scrawny boy hunched defensively over a desk at the back of the room, scowling through his greasy hair ... I thought I'd never seen such an unappealing youth, so unlovely and so unloved.

Oh dear, Severus wasn't easy to like then and he isn't always easy to like now - and he did have a dreadful temper, but he also had a hunger for a word of encouragement, a word of praise, that he was far too proud to show. He's as proud as a Hippogriff, that's always been one of his problems, he'd rather be hated than pitied. And he certainly got what he wanted because James Potter and Sirius Black _loathed_ him – and he couldn't win against the pair of them, they were inseparable, at least until James started going out with Lily. What did Rosmerta say? _Ooh, they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!_ But Rosmerta only saw them in her pub, joking with their friends, she didn't see them tormenting Severus.

And the worst of it was that James honestly thought that he was doing the right thing, teaching the nasty little Dark wizard a lesson ... what did my dear wife say, what did that Muggle philosopher she admired say? _Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience_. Gryffindor virtue – when it isn't tempered by common sense and kindness – can do so much harm, and James told Severus so many times that it wasn't what he _did_, it was what he _was_, that was objectionable, that was _evil_, told him so many times that he was a filthy worthless Slytherin - was it surprising that he came to believe it? What did James say to Lily - that ugly incident after the OWL examination, and in front of all those girls, could anything be more humiliating for a teenage boy - when she asked him what Severus had done to him? _It's more the fact that he exists_. And Severus was always a good student, he learned his lesson well, and he grew up to be a very bad Dark wizard indeed.

And Sirius couldn't forget that he was a Black, that he was wizarding royalty, even though he was Sorted into Gryffindor, even though he was at loggerheads with his family - and one reason why he hated Severus was that he was outraged that a scruffy little nobody by the name of Snape knew more about Dark magic than the son of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, _toujours pur_. Sirius was brave, talented, handsome, amusing, charming ... but he was also cruel. Those cruel nick-names, Snivelly, Snivellus, mocking Severus for his hair and his nose, petty insults, but they _hurt_, I know, I was – I still _am_ – very short in stature, and I had a taste of it when I was at school.

And no one did anything to rein them in, I didn't do anything in the six months that I taught Defence because I was only temporary staff, and the next year I was appointed Charms Professor and Head of Ravenclaw and I had a Houseful of my own students to worry about ... Minerva couldn't see what was happening, James was her star Quidditch player, and Sirius was her star Transfiguration student, they were clever, lively boys whose pranks sometimes got a bit out of hand ... and Horace had a weakness for the popular, beautiful people, both boys and girls, though he preferred boys - and Severus was such an unprepossessing, unattractive youth until he turned seventeen and came of age. The ugly duckling turned into a black swan in his last year at Hogwarts and discovered yet another way to disgrace himself, yet another way to live up to his reputation as the Slytherin bad boy – if Bertha Jorkin's story about what he was doing with that nice little Hufflepuff girl behind the greenhouses is true.

Oh yes, by the time that Severus came back to Hogwarts for his final year he was really bitter, he was prickly enough in sixth year but then something happened - something serious, something secret, something that _wasn't_ gossiped about amongst the portraits and the ghosts, as most Hogwarts secrets are - that convinced him that the whole world hated him, and Severus was determined to hate the whole world back, with a vengeance. Albus realised then what a dangerous young man he had on his hands, but it was too late, and I think Albus feels terribly guilty, he blames himself for Severus becoming a Death Eater almost as soon as he left school, and he knows what he's done, he's seen Severus' Ministry file. And he feels guilty about using Severus as his spy in the last war, he feels guilty about making him do a dirty job that I suspect he'd never ask a Gryffindor to do. It's been Albus' penance to keep Severus here, where he's constantly reminded of what an awful mess Severus has made of his life – and Severus has stayed here, with Albus, at this school that he loves and hates, because he has nowhere else to go, and no one else who cares about him, and no one else who he cares about ... and the poor boy has never really grown up, in many ways he's still the same angry, wounded teenager he was when he left Hogwarts.

But then he remembers that Severus has been giving Harry extra tuition in Potions and he cheers up immediately. This is such a promising sign, Severus must be as determined as Minerva that Harry will qualify for Auror training, even if it's only to please Albus, and he'd rather coach Harry up to achieve an Outstanding in his OWL than drop his standards for his NEWT class ... and if Severus and Harry spend a little time alone together away from the pressures of the classroom, Severus might realise that Harry isn't James, might realise that Harry is actually rather a nice boy – he'd be really shocked and upset if he knew how his father and the other Marauders had treated Severus. And Severus should be able to get Harry through his OWL easily enough, he's a very capable teacher and Harry is quite a bright student when he tries - that was a perfect Summoning Charm that Harry used in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. Of course, his mother was outstanding in Charms, she had a lovely wand for charms work, but perhaps it's a good thing that Harry _hasn't_ inherited Lily's ability in Potions, it would only infuriate Severus if James Potter's son had anything like his own extraordinary gift. Lily and Severus ... they were Horace's most brilliant NEWT students but Severus never resented her talent, he actually seemed to like her ...

And then his musings are interrupted by the bells ringing for the end of classes for the day, and then screams and yells reverberating from somewhere above him, so he scampers up to Gregory the Smarmy's corridor on the fifth floor, where the commotion is the loudest, to find out what's going on. The corridor has been turned into a quagmire, students are trapped in their classrooms and Filch is having hysterics, screaming, how do you expect me to clean this up with a _mop_? Sweet Merlin, someone has done a good job on this, and he suspects the Weasley twins, it's got their signature written all over it. He starts bustling about, being _helpful_, levitating students across the bog, thinking, I could clear this swamp away with a wave of my wand but I won't, it's the Headmistress' responsibility, she wanted the job and now she's got it. And this is really impressive magic for a couple of teenagers ... Ravenclaw doesn't have a monopoly on intelligence, any more than Gryffindor has a monopoly on courage, though it would be nice if Minerva would appreciate that and give a little more credit to the other Houses.

Severus appears from the direction of the staff room, looks around at the mess, smirks, and catches his eye, and he knows that Severus knows what he's thinking - _brilliant work, I'd be proud to have these lads in Ravenclaw._ And then Severus leans down and whispers into his ear, "Ten points to Gryffindor", and he thinks, magic of this standard is worth more than ten points but normally Severus would rather be fried in Lobalung lard than give points to Gryffindor ...

Then he sees Umbridge at the other end of the corridor, glaring at them, and he remembers Marietta Edgecombe's spots, and of course he _could_ remove that charm, but Marietta has an important lesson to learn, and having to wear a balaclava until the end of term will teach it to her. But Umbridge had choked with rage when he told her that he couldn't lift that charm, that he couldn't live a student's charm, because that clever little enchantment will be Hermione Granger's work. And then he thinks, do your _worst_, Dolores Umbridge, you'll be gone soon enough - as soon as Voldemort moves openly against the Ministry, they'll be begging Albus to come back to Hogwarts and your precious Cornelius Fudge will be out of office before you can say _Wingardium Leviosa._

Now Pansy Parkinson is tugging on Umbridge's sleeve and saying something to her ... and one of his Ravenclaws is excitedly telling him that Fred and George Weasley were _seen_, they were caught redhanded, and now they've been cornered by the Inquisitorial Squad in the Entrance Hall, Umbridge is on her way down to deal with them ... so he exchanges a significant look with Severus and they head down together, he's thinking, she can expel them for this, and Molly Weasley will have kittens if they're expelled. But by the time they get down to the Entrance Hall, it's nearly over - the Weasley boys are raising their wands and shouting _"Accio brooms!"_, their broomsticks come hurtling into the Entrance Hall and stop sharply in front of their owners, one of them still dangling the chain that pegged it to the wall of Umbridge's office, and he's delighted by the strength of their Summoning Charms.

"We won't be seeing you," says Fred, swinging his leg over his broomstick.

"Yeah, don't bother to keep in touch," says George, mounting his own.

Fred looks around at the assembled students, at the silent, watchful crowd. "If anyone fancies buying a Portable Swamp, as demonstrated upstairs, come to number ninety-three, Diagon Alley – Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes," he says in a loud voice. "Our new premises!"

"Special discounts to Hogwarts students who swear they're going to use our products to get rid of this old bat," adds George, pointing at Umbridge.

Umbridge shrieks, "STOP THEM", but the Inquisitorial Squad are too slow and the Weasleys kick off from the ground fifteen feet into the air, shout, "Give her hell from us, Peeves!", wheel around and speed out of the open front doors of the Entrance Hall. Peeves sweeps his hat off and salutes - he's never seen the poltergeist treat a student with anything but contempt before - Umbridge is looking like she'll burst with rage, and there is a tremendous roar of applause.

He glances at Severus, even he looks as if he's struggling not to smile, and he thinks, this is superb, those boys have tremendous nerve – and I'd wager a stack of Galleons that the whole school will go wild after this, and Peeves will be completely out of control. There's going to be mayhem now!

He looks back towards the doors of the Entrance Hall, the Inquisitorial Squad are milling around, looking really discomforted, while the spectators hoot and jeer ... but now Severus is looking furious, and he thinks, oh no, here we go again, that's the same look he had on his face when Gryffindor won the last Quidditch final against Slytherin, the year before last, when Slytherin played the dirtiest game of Quidditch I've _ever_ seen played at Hogwarts but still couldn't score - it was eighty to twenty in Gryffindor's favour when Harry caught the Snitch. It wasn't Gryffindor winning that upset Severus so much - it was the fact that the whole school supported Gryffindor, but feeling was running very strong against Slytherin that year, after Draco Malfoy's appalling behaviour, when he and his little gang tried to sabotage the Gryffindor–Ravenclaw match by impersonating Dementors.

The look on Severus' face is frightening, there's murder in those black eyes, and he can feel a frisson of uncontrolled magic ... and then he has a horrible vision of black eyes glittering malevolently through a Death Eater's mask and he thinks, no, Albus wouldn't send him back to Voldemort, he wouldn't make Severus spy for him again, he wouldn't do that, surely Albus wouldn't do _that_ to Severus.


	3. Chapter 3: Severus Snape

**Chapter 3**

**Severus Snape**

He's in the staff room, drinking a cup of tea – strong, black, lemon, two sugars - he should be in his office, marking assignments, there's a pile of them three feet high on his desk but he's skived off for early, because he doesn't like being in his office, it reminds him of Potter, it reminds him of when he threw the jar of cockroaches at Potter, and some student might come and bother him in his office, and he doesn't feel like being bothered by students. And anyway he's got a couple of hours worth of detentions tonight, he's got plenty of time to wrestle with that stack of parchments, plenty of time to wince at the grammar and the spelling - a Spell-Checking Quill only goes so far – and the handwriting that gets worse every year, if only there was some way to get the students to type the frigging things ...

He wishes his tea was something stronger, he'd have liked to nick off to his private quarters for a slug of firewhisky and a cigarette but that's a slippery slope, he's afraid of where it might end if he starts down that track. If he starts drinking on school nights, if he starts losing his grip, if he gets into a downward spiral of misbehaviour, who knows where it might end? He remembers the scandal in his OWL year, when the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher simply disappeared over the Christmas break and when classes resumed there was a new teacher – Professor Flitwick – but they all knew what had happened, and he thinks, sourly, I'm not like that, it's Karkaroff who can't be trusted with underage girls ... but that didn't stop him becoming Headmaster at Durmstrang, did it? And the Dark Mark didn't stop him, either, it's blighted _my_ life but it didn't stop Karkaroff from becoming Headmaster, and I know how he got out of Azkaban, he shopped me and Rookwood to the Ministry, not that I care, I shopped him first, but Rookwood is severely pissed off and if he catches up with Karkaroff, Karkaroff will die _very_ slowly ... that shit Karkaroff, Madame Maxime knew what he was like, she watched him like a hawk at the Yule Ball, hell, I'm not like that - Dumbledore knows I'm not like that, he _trusts_ me.

And then he remembers the Yule Ball, he hadn't recognised Hermione Granger for a minute, he'd thought that it was one of the Beauxbatons girls who was hanging off Viktor Krum's arm. He thinks, yes, we all noticed that Granger is a girl that night, even Filius, who must be nearly as old as Dumbledore ... even Draco. And when a teenage boy can't stop looking at an attractive girl, when he can't stop thinking about her, when he can't stop talking about how much he detests the filthy Mudblood Gryffindor and the two boys she spends most of her time with, when he can't decide whether he hates the Scarhead or the Weasel the most ... Merlin's beard, I've seen enough teenage soap dramas acted out in my classroom to know what's going on, even if Draco doesn't. And Granger is a good deal more attractive than pug faced Pansy Parkinson, even when she doesn't tame that mass of hair with Sleekeazy's Hair Potion. Damn it, why am I thinking about Granger, I can't stand the blasted girl, she's an insufferable know-it-all ... and she's only fifteen.

Fifteen! Who'd want to be fifteen again, fifth year had been the absolute pits ... the year when he first noticed girls, before that he hadn't paid much attention to them, girls weren't dangerous, they didn't try to hex him ... but in fifth year he'd noticed that the redhaired Muggle-born Gryffindor who was so good at Charms was a _girl_, how could he not notice her, the way that James Potter was constantly hitting on her, and the memory makes him writhe ... _Go on ... go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again._ Not that he'd ever had a chance with her, if she wasn't even interested in the Gryffindor Quidditch champion, in handsome, popular James Potter, why would she ever look at _him?_ And then he'd called her a filthy Mudblood – and by the time he'd really got to know her in old Slughorn's special advanced tutorials for his two most brilliant NEWTs students, by the time they had become friends, it was too late, she was already going out with Potter. Sure, he'd fancied her, who didn't – she was gorgeous, she was gorgeous even at two o'clock in the morning, with her hair hanging limply over her face and the sleeves of her robes rolled up, as she stirred a smoking cauldron full of one of the Slug's more temperamental elixirs while the lazy old bastard snored in his bed – but he didn't really care if she was seeing Potter, no, he didn't care one little bit. And there'd been other girls, and all cats are grey in the dark, they're all the same when you pull their knickers down, witches or Muggles, they're all the same.

He gulps his tea, he doesn't like where his thoughts are going and it definitely wouldn't be a good idea to start drinking on the job, it's definitely better if he keeps _all_ his vices for his own time, for Saturday nights, when he's finished his detentions and his paperwork, when his time is his own and he can do what he likes with it, and if he chooses to spend it in Muggle nightclubs, looking for companionship - adult, consensual companionship - that's nobody's business. And he has no qualms about obliviating them afterwards, they're only Muggles, and it's best if they don't remember him.

He takes another gulp of tea, leans back in his armchair – the comfortable low armchair he'd claimed for himself years ago and defended against all comers ever since – and tells himself to calm down, take it easy, the staff room is a safe place to lurk until the day is over, hardly anyone comes into it now, they're too scared of running into Umbridge, and poor bloody Pomona has hardly been seen since the inspections started, she's hiding out in her greenhouses, too ashamed of Umbridge to show her face, and this gives him a vicious sense of satisfaction, Umbridge is a truly nasty piece of work ... and a Hufflepuff! _Delicious!_ That sadistic bitch is a _Hufflepuff!_ He thinks about letting that drop, the way he let it drop that Lupin was a werewolf, but he can't do that to Pomona, she's always been decent enough to him, and the Hufflepuff students behave themselves in class, they don't give any cheek, he hasn't got any reason to hate them – not like the Gryffindors, not like _Potter_. Potter, bloody Potter, just thinking about Potter is making his hand tremble, making him spill his tea. Dumbledore hadn't been angry when he'd told him that he'd stopped giving Potter Occlumency lessons, he'd just looked sad and disappointed, well of course Dumbledore would be disappointed with the boy, disgraceful behaviour, looking into a Pensieve without permission, typical of the vile, arrogant, undisciplined brat, but he still feels as if he's failed, as if he's let Dumbledore down.

He thinks, if only Potter had come to me and apologised ... but he _didn't_, and I couldn't be the first to raise the subject, I'd have lost all authority over the wretched boy. And Black would have laughed about it with him, _laughed_ about how I'd had to tuck my tail between my legs and come crawling to his godson. And Black is always going to be one up on me, how could I have been so stupid as to say it, _Sirius Black showed that he was capable of murder at the age of sixteen_. But Black only _tried_ to kill me, he didn't succeed, it was only a student prank, wasn't it? How could I have been so stupid as to remind the Headmaster of what I started doing when I was eighteen, of what's in that god-damn Ministry file, the list of names of people that I killed ... wizards anyway, I couldn't be expected to know the names of the Muggles.

Try to look on the bright side, the Dark Lord had been pleased with him when he told the Dark Lord that he'd managed to sabotage the Occlumency lessons, Dumbledore had realised that Potter wasn't making any progress and had ordered the lessons stopped ... and Potter _hadn't_ been making any progress, he refused to apply himself, the brat just wouldn't _try_, it had been a total fucking fiasco – and he couldn't understand it, OK, perhaps he'd been a bit more aggressive than he should have been, but he'd shown Potter how much it can hurt if you don't guard your mind, so why wouldn't Potter apply himself? And why did the loathsome little bastard have to look in that Pensieve, why did he have to _look_? And he'd had to leave the room, he'd had to go and see to Montague, the boy had been missing for over twenty-four hours, and he still doesn't know what's wrong with him, he hasn't been hexed, but Montague's mind is a mess, he's had some kind of traumatic experience ...

Then he thinks, what did Potter expect to see in that Pensieve, he knows what I am, he was there when I showed Fudge the Dark Mark, he must guess at what I've done, the kinds of memories that I don't want him to see. But why did it have to be _that_ memory, the memory that I put in the Pensieve for his own protection, the memory I use to fuel the Killing Curse - I won't kill him, unless I do it Muggle-style, with my bare hands - while that memory is locked away. And the memory comes flooding back into his mind for the second time in ten minutes, he can hear his own voice, _I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her_, and Lily's, _I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus_.

And then he remembers the memories that he'd seen in Potter's mind ... childhood memories that reminded him too much of his own, though it seems that the Muggle uncle had never beaten the boy ... James Potter and Lily Evans in the Mirror of Erised, that had hurt, seeing Lily's face again, and James putting his arm around her, the boy must be stupid, weak, self-indulgent to wallow in such visions, because wild horses wouldn't drag _him_ to look into that mirror and see some cruel mirage, some tormenting vision of happiness which had never been, could never be ... but the memory that had really unnerved him, that had brought the bile up from his stomach, was the memory of Cedric Diggory's dead body lying in the graveyard at Little Hangleton.

He'd crawled on his belly to the Dark Lord in that graveyard, in abject fear of his life, and he'd been right to be afraid, from what Lucius had told him later, when they were both licking their wounds at the Manor, he'd been under sentence of death, the Dark Lord had said, _one who I believe has left me for ever ... he will be killed, of course_. The Legilimency had been brutal but the _crucio_ hadn't been too bad, a token gesture really, the Dark Lord was so anxious to find out what had happened to young Barty Crouch, and what Fudge and Dumbledore's next move would be, and he'd washed up with nothing worse than a couple of cracked ribs from screaming so much. Lucius had copped it much, much worse when the Dark Lord asked about his diary, when the Dark Lord found out that the thing had ended up at Hogwarts and that Potter had a hand in its destruction, the Dark Lord had gone berserk, he'd nearly killed Lucius, he'd beaten Lucius as if he were a house elf.

He wonders how Lucius could still be loyal to the Dark Lord after a beating like that, because it's not just the pain, it's the humiliation, a beating like that while everyone watches. But then he thinks, if Lucius has qualms, if he has doubts, if he's afraid for Draco, he's hardly likely to tell his best friend, he's hardly likely to tell _me_, the Dark Lord's faithful servant stationed at Hogwarts for fifteen years. And Lucius should be afraid for Draco, the kid is not shaping up to be anything like the same kind of merciless bastard that his father is - they should all be afraid for their sons, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott and the others - because Dumbledore's centaur says that the coming war is going to be bad, it's going to make the first war look like a teddy bears' picnic. The first war - we call it a war, but it was only terrorism, it wasn't war the way the Muggles fight a war – was bad enough but the coming war is going to be worse, and for this war the Dark Lord will need soldiers, he'll need cannon fodder, he'll need a supply of reckless young fools who can't imagine turning thirty, let alone dying.

He remembers his father's books about the Muggle version of the war against Grindelwald, the stories of the young men who were afraid that the war would be over by Christmas, afraid that the war would be over before they had a chance to win medals and glory. Well, the Muggles had had a gutful by the time it was over, they had six years of it, and they would have had more if Dumbledore hadn't stepped in, it would have been another hot war, not a Cold War, and another tide of blood washing over Europe ... and then he thinks, wizards are as stupid as Muggles, I was as stupid as any of those Muggle idiots, falling over themselves for a chance to win the Victoria Cross, falling over themselves for a chance to win the Knight's Cross. Oh, I couldn't _wait_ to take the Dark Mark, the Dark Lord offered me the things that I really wanted - and not just glory, not just the honour of his approval, he offered me more tangible things as well - I just didn't know the price that I'd have to pay.

He thinks, a Slytherin should always have an exit strategy but once you let _him_ put his Mark on your arm you're fucked, there's no way out, it's a lifetime of service or death - but I didn't know that, I didn't know that once I was branded with his Mark I wouldn't be able to raise hand or wand against him, none of his Death Eaters can, because the Dark Mark is a choke chain. And I thought, if Lucius has taken the Mark, it must be OK, and I followed Lucius like a sheep in a slaughterhouse follows the Judas goat ... and to think that there was once a time when I practically worshipped Lucius - wealthy, handsome, charming, _pureblood_ Lucius Malfoy! Well, things have changed now, Lucius is having to peddle hard to regain the Dark Lord's favour and if he screws up again the Dark Lord will kill him, but the Dark Lord _loves_ me, hahaha, because I'm the one who can give him the information on Potter that he craves, he's completely obsessed with _the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord_, he's completely obsessed with hearing the full prophecy ... the effort that Dumbledore is putting into guarding it is just making him hungrier and hungrier for it.

But there is one memory of Potter's that he returns to again and again, it nags like a loose tooth, Potter's memory of his Sorting. He thinks, if Harry Potter had been Sorted into Slytherin, I would have been his Head of House, and perhaps things would have gone differently from the beginning. He remembers Potter's first Potions class ... staring across the room at James Potter's face and the Gryffindor badge had brought it all back, his awful disappointment in his first year at Hogwarts. He had been so sure it would be different, Hogwarts was a wizard school, surely things would be different from the Muggle school where every minute in the playground had been torment and if they could catch him after school, if they could catch the ugly little long-haired freak with the weird name, their favourite game was to cut his hair off - because next day it would be back, shoulder length and greasy. The Muggle boys had tortured him relentlessly until he grew older, stronger, until even without a wand he knew how to hurt them, but things would be different at Hogwarts, he would be amongst his own kind.

But things _hadn't_ been different, the Marauders had given him hell for seven years and it was always four against one because he didn't have close friends amongst the Slytherins in his year, he hung around with the older kids, with the older gang dominated by Lucius and Bellatrix. So he'd looked across the room, at the boy with James Potter's face and Lily Evan's eyes, and it wasn't going to happen again, he wasn't going to endure another seven years of hell, he'd been determined to have the upper hand from the very beginning. But the Boy Who Lived had dared to challenge him, Potter had said _I don't know. I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?_ - and some of the class had laughed, they'd actually _laughed_. He'd been both incredulous and furious, and he'd thought, I did not ask for information, but to teach you respect, to show you that the greasy git your father tormented is the one who has the power _now_.

And then he thinks, damn my hair, hair has its own magic and mine has always been bloody uncontrollable, well, I'm not Gilderoy Lockhart, it's not _my_ lifetime ambition to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions, what a _moron_, and as camp as a row of tents, I'd have liked to have jammed the Wagga Wagga werewolf right up his arse. And then Dumbledore appointed Lupin! And that had hurt, it hurt to have Lupin back at Hogwarts, no matter how many times Dumbledore said _I know how upsetting this must be_. He'd felt able to argue with Dumbledore about that, the thing was a werewolf, it was dangerous, but he'd been overruled, and he'd had to spend the year watching the brute, standing over it to make it take its Wolfsbane Potion, was Dumbledore insane, to let the creature near Potter?

OK, Lupin hadn't been helping his old friend Black, and Black wasn't the traitor ... he winces at the thought of how he'd stuffed up in the Shrieking Shack, if he'd only _looked_ at the rat he would have seen it for what it was, but he'd nearly lost control at the sight of Black, he'd wanted revenge, he'd wanted revenge on Lily's betrayer, and he'd been hard put not to kill Black on sight, but Dumbledore wouldn't have liked that, and it wouldn't have been a pretty sight for the brats to see. That useless bastard Lupin, if only he'd told them that the Marauders were unregistered Animagi, if only he'd shown them the Marauders' Map - and that hurts, too, it hurts to think of how clever the Marauders were, a wizard has to sweat for years to master the Animagus spell, and the Map is the kind of genuinely creative, innovative magic that he really admires. And why had he shown Lupin the Map, why hadn't he kept it, made a proper investigation of it? That was incredibly bloody stupid ... he'd wanted to score some points off the werewolf, and that had backfired badly.

He could protest against Lupin's appointment but he couldn't say a thing when Dumbledore gave Moody the job, the bastard was qualified, he couldn't argue against _that_. Dumbledore had said, "I know how you feel, but there were no applicants for the job this year, none at all, Alastor Moody is only doing this for me as a favour - and I will have a word with him." But he'd been really upset, he'd thought, Moody hates me, and he knows what's in my Ministry file, the file that's supposed to be confidential, he can use it to stand over me and he will, but he'll be cunning enough to do it when Dumbledore isn't around, and that's Dumbledore's weakness, he has to believe the best of everyone, even that prick Moody, I know what he's like, and a little voice had said, of course you know what he's like, he's a nasty Slytherin bastard just like you. And then Dumbledore had jerked his chain, just a gentle tug but he'd felt like a dog brought to heel, he'd said, "Severus, I know that you bend the Ministry guidelines on the use of Legilimency - and he'd thought, _how can I be expected to keep a houseful of Slytherins in order if I don't know what the little prats are thinking before they do, Slughorn did it all the time_ - but Alastor Moody won't stand for it, please don't provoke him."

So he'd avoided eye contact with Moody from the night that he arrived, he'd kept his head down, he hadn't given him any excuse, but that wasn't good enough, Moody had to take it out on Draco. He'd known very well that Moody had bounced Draco around like that to punish Lucius - what an arsehole, picking on the kid just because he looks like his father, talks like his father - and he hadn't been able to protect Draco. And once Draco had been dismissed, with a detention with Moody to add to his bruises, he'd had to stand there and take it, he'd bent his neck to avoid looking Moody in the face, he'd carefully placed his wand on top of a pile of unmarked Potions essays, out of easy reach - a Gryffindor might have thought this was a threat, a challenge, but Moody was a Slytherin, he'd understand. Moody would understand that he was abasing himself, deliberately making himself defenceless, like a low-ranking wolf exposing his throat to the pack leader.

And then Moody had ripped into him, "Do you like Quidditch, Snape? Were you at the World Cup, was it you who summoned the Dark Mark?" And he'd been shocked, Albus knows I wasn't there, it was Lucius and some of the old crowd, they had a few drinks too many and decided to have a little fun with the Muggles and they don't know who cast the Dark Mark, either. Moody had taunted him, threatened him - told him, you go running to Dumbledore about this, you go running to Dumbledore about _anything_, and a copy of your Ministry file might just fall off the back of the Knight Bus, right into the hands of Rita Skeeter, and after what happened at the Quidditch World Cup, I don't think people are going to like what Rita Skeeter could make out of what's in that file, all the lovely juicy details in that file ... and he'd thought, Moody has cracked up completely, you don't need to be a Legilimens to see _that_. Moody is just insane enough to do it, even though it will drop Dumbledore in the dirt, too, because Skeeter is looking for an angle on Dumbledore and she doesn't care what it is.

And then he'd realised just how much Moody was trying to provoke him, _Go on Snape, have a go, I know you want to - but you're a good boy now, Snape, aren't you, Dumbledore's pet Death Eater, you don't kill people any more_. And he had wanted to have a go at Moody, he'd imagined saying the words, he'd imagined the flash of green light, and his left forearm had started to burn, for the first time in thirteen years, and that had been frightening, so frightening that his hands had started to shake - and after that he had been careful, very careful, never to be alone with Moody. He would never have dared to speak to Moody the way that he did the night that his office was broken into if Filch hadn't been there as a witness, Moody would have to watch his tongue if there was a witness - oh, Barty Crouch was good, he was _bloody_ good, he'd played the part of Moody to perfection and bluffed him, Snape, totally.

And now he wonders if he really wants the Defence job, or if it's just a bone to fight over with Dumbledore, something that he only wants because Dumbledore won't give it to him. But then he thinks, damn you, Albus, because you wouldn't give me the job, the Ministry got their foot in the door and of course Potter had to cause trouble and because it was Potter, Harry-precious-Potter, who started up that ridiculous student group, because it was Potter who got caught, you sacrificed yourself to keep Potter at Hogwarts. I know you had to, there's nothing more important than keeping Potter safe, and I know that you'll be back - but you're not here _now_, and I miss you, Albus. And Umbridge _threatened_ me, she threatened me with my Ministry file, she's holding that over my head, that bloody file haunts me every day of my life, but why did I have to let her get to me? Because Potter was there, listening to every word she said, _Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you? ... the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers' backgrounds _... he must have _loved_ that, watching Umbridge put the boot in, watching Umbridge humiliate me. It's always Potter, it's always about Potter – it's been about Potter since before the day he was born ...

He finishes his tea, glances at the clock on the staff room wall, it's five o'clock and he can hear the bells ringing for the end of classes for the day, and then he hears screams and yells reverberating from somewhere above him, _delightful_, another catastrophe for Umbridge to sort out, if she can, because he won't be lifting a finger, she can't expect him too, he's only the Potions master, what would he know about foolish wand waving? He saunters up to the fifth floor corridor, where the commotion is the loudest, to find that it's been turned into a quagmire. Students are trapped in their classrooms and Filch is having hysterics, screaming, how do you expect me to clean this up with a _mop_? Sweet Merlin, someone has done a good job on this, and he suspects the Weasley twins, it's got their signature written all over it and of course they were responsible for those fireworks ... Fred and George Weasley were a flaming nuisance in Potions and he'd been glad to be shot of them after their OWL year, but this is amazing magic for a couple of teenagers – and they wouldn't have got the spell out of a book, either, this is all their own work.

Filius is bustling about, being _helpful_, levitating students across the bog, what a joke, when he knows that Filius could clear this mess away with a flick of his wand ... but then he remembers Marietta Edgecombe's spots, Filius is skating on thin ice, Umbridge had nearly choked with disbelief when Filius told her that he couldn't lift that charm, that he couldn't lift a student's spell – because that clever little enchantment will be Granger's work.

He thinks, I like Filius, he's alright, and I don't mind the Ravenclaws, they usually pay attention and work hard in class ... I'd better have a word with Filius, I'd better warn him, because Umbridge will be looking for any excuse to fill this place up with Ministry stooges, stupid cow, I'm pretty sure that she's not one of the Dark Lord's creatures but she might as well be, the Dark Lord was tickled pink when I told him that Dumbledore had been driven out of Hogwarts.

And what the hell is Minerva playing at, half the school heard that shouting match with Umbridge this morning, it was over Potter of course, and there's no need to sweat, Potter will qualify for Auror training ... he's the _weapon_ and he'll be in my NEWTs class whatever mark he scrapes in his OWL. This could have been an opportunity for Minerva to teach Potter about what the Muggles call realpolitik, but no, she has to fight cat-and-dog with Umbridge and she'll end up getting kicked out of Hogwarts and how is that going to help Potter?

Filius looks up and smiles at him, he catches the thought, _brilliant work, I'd be proud to have these lads in Ravenclaw._ He smirks back, and then, impulsively, he leans down and whispers into Filius' ear, "Ten points to Gryffindor", magic of this standard is worth more than ten points but normally he'd rather be fried in Lobalung lard than give points to Gryffindor.

Then he spots Umbridge, down the other end of the corridor, and Pansy Parkinson is tugging on her sleeve and saying something to her ... damn, he thinks, Pansy acts as if she's thicker than a concussed troll whenever she's around Draco, well I wouldn't have made her a prefect if she wasn't smarter than that, it's a crying shame that her ambition is entirely focused on becoming Mrs Draco Malfoy.

Then he listens to the chatter around him, Fred and George Weasley were seen, caught redhanded, and now they've been cornered by the Inquisitorial Squad in the Entrance Hall, Umbridge is on her way down to deal with them ... so he exchanges a significant look with Filius and they head down together, he's thinking, she can expel them for this, and Molly Weasley will have kittens if they're expelled. But by the time they get down to the Entrance Hall, it's nearly over - the Weasley boys are raising their wands and shouting "_Accio brooms_!", and their broomsticks come hurtling into the Entrance Hall and stop sharply in front of their owners, one of them still dangling the chain that pegged it to the wall of Umbridge's office, and he can't help but be impressed by the strength of their Summoning Charms. He thinks, all the Weasleys are talented, bar the youngest son, god alone knows what Granger sees in him, but at least he's not a complete dolt like Longbottom and he doesn't seem to care that she's smarter and magically more powerful than he is ... and she'll want brats, witches always do, and I suppose she thinks he'll make a good father one day.

The Weasleys are mounting their broomsticks and shouting something defiant, something about opening up a business in Diagon Alley ... Umbridge shrieks, "STOP THEM", but the Inquisitorial Squad are too slow and the Weasleys kick off from the ground fifteen feet into the air, shout, "Give her hell from us, Peeves!", wheel around and speed out of the open front doors of the Entrance Hall. Peeves sweeps his hat off and salutes - he's never seen the poltergeist treat a student with anything but contempt before - Umbridge is looking like she'll burst with rage, and there is a tremendous roar of applause.

Filius is grinning like a Cheshire Cat, and he has difficulty in restraining himself from laughing openly, oh, what a pathetic excuse for a witch Umbridge is, she has hardly any more magic than Filch, and she calls herself the Headmistress! But suddenly it isn't funny any longer, Draco and the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad are looking utterly crestfallen and the whole school is laughing at them, the whole school is hooting and jeering at a dejected little group of Slytherins, and he knows what _that_ feels like, to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers. And now he's really angry, he's furious - this is just like the last Quidditch final, the year that Black broke out of Azkaban, two hundred people wearing green against six hundred in Gryffindor red and gold, Slytherin House against the rest of the school, as usual. Marcus Flint and the rest of the team played their hearts out in that match, they tried every trick in the book, but it wasn't good enough - the score was eighty to twenty in Gryffindor's favour when Potter caught the Snitch, and the whole school cheered. And then he remembers Montague ... what the hell happened to him? He's the captain and the best player on the Slytherin team, was it sabotage? Did those Weasley twins do something to him? Revenge for getting kicked off the Gryffindor team? Oh, if they'd been caught at it, it would have been a harmless little prank ... and he knows that his body is generating waves of anger and a frisson of uncontrolled magic strong enough for Filius to feel, because Filius is looking alarmed and stepping away from him, but he just doesn't care, all he can think is _you fucking idiot, you gave points to Gryffindor, are you fucking insane?_


End file.
